SAGE ADVICE: Former US secretary of defense William Perry said China ‘called it a drill, accept it as a drill’ about next week’s PLA drill, as he swung through on a book tour
Taipei Times
Date: Apr 14, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
Former US secretary of defense William Perry yesterday urged the Taiwanese government
Former US secretary of defense William Perry, author of My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, yesterday talks about his book and comments on current US-Taiwan relations in Taipei. Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
to “play it cool” ahead of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) planned live-fire drill in the Taiwan Strait next week.
“My advice will be as long as the Chinese do not violate your boundary and sovereignty, play it cool. Don’t read something into [what] might or might not be there,” Perry told media in Taipei.
“They called it a drill, accept it as a drill,” he said, referring to the PLA’s scheduled exercise that is scheduled to take place from 8am to midnight on Wednesday next week in a zone 20km from the coast of Quanzhou Bay in Fujian Province.
Perry, who served as US secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997 under then-US president Bill Clinton, was on a whirlwind 24-hour visit to Taiwan to promote the Mandarin version of his book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink. [FULL STORY]
